A political Blog about how and why a reign of terror in West Bengal is unleashed planfully by imperialists, multinational company financed and supported Rainbow Alliance of Maoists, Naxalites,TMC, Congress, SUCI, perverted anti-Communist and anti-Leftist so-called sold-out intellectuals, corporate media and NGOs of doubtful character. Source: 'People's Democracy', 'Ganashakti' and other Left oriented journals.

Tuesday, July 31, 2012

NOAM Chomsky, in an interview to
Democracy Now, comparing George Bush and Barack Obama said: “If Bush, the Bush
administration, didn’t like somebody, they’d kidnap them and send them to
torture chambers; if the Obama administration decides they don’t like somebody,
they murder them, so you don’t have to have torture chambers all over”. Of
course, another important difference is, one (Obama) is a Nobel Peace prize
winner and the other is not. It is not just in West Asia/North Africa that we find the
intervention of the US; it is continuing with these nefarious designs in Latin America, which it still
considers its 'backyard'. The recent events, where president Fernando Lugo was
removed from power in Paraguay reaffirms this. Before that it had its hand in Honduras (2009), Haiti (2010), Ecuador (unsuccessful in 2010) and in several destabilising efforts in Venezuela and Bolivia. All these and similar efforts are together labelled as 'coup 2.0'.

Coups in Latin America are acquiring newer
and newer forms. Instead of the pure and simple military coup, new ways are emerging,
ranging from social destabilisation generated by the police (Ecuador) to the fraudulent use of judicial and even constitutional resources –
like in Honduras and now in Paraguay. Of course, this does not mean that military coups are completely out
of question – they are just in time freeze. In Paraguay it is as smooth as it can be: the president was removed from his post
using certain constitutional provisions. In fact, Article 225 of the 1992
constitution of Paraguay states that the Congress and the Senate can impeach the president of
the country, for 'poor performance of duties'. Viewing thus, there is nothing
unconstitutional that had happened in Paraguay. But this is only a tiny fragment of the story.

Evoking this constitutional provision,
the opposition in Paraguay called for the impeachment of the president, gave him less than 24
hours to prepare and even less than two hours to defend his case. In all, the
entire impeachment procedure lasted just six hours. As a political observer of
the continent pointed out, in the period of globalisation and in the times of
'instant' coffee, the impeachment procedures too are getting accelerated. In
this ridiculously short time given for defending his actions, the president was
voted out of his post by an over-whelming majority, both in the Congress and
the Senate. Even Federico Franco, the vice president who had led the coup and
replaced Lugo as the president, was forced to accept that the entire process was a
little “too fast”.

REAL INTENTIONS

The charges levelled against him for
moving the impeachment motion expose the real intentions in voting out
president Lugo. The charges are self-explanatory: irresponsibility and neglect during
clashes between peasants and police; he improperly allowed Leftist parties to
hold a political meeting in an army base in 2009; he allowed about 3,000
squatters (landless peasants) to illegally invade a large Brazilian-owned
soybean farm; his government failed to capture members of a Leftist guerilla
group, the Paraguayan People's Army and that he signed an international Leftist
protocol (MERCOSUR treaty) without properly submitting it to Congress for
approval. The intentions are explicitly stated in a statement made while moving
the impeachment motion in the legislature: “The constant confrontation and
struggle of social classes, which as a final result brought about the massacre
between compatriots, is an unprecedented development in the annals of history
from independence till today”. So, it is the question of land and the struggle
for its ownership that is at the heart of the problem.

Paraguay is one of the poorest countries in the world and in Latin America too. It has some of
the highest land concentrations in the world. According to the latest
agricultural census carried out in 2008, 85.5 per cent of the farmland is in
the hands of just 2.06 per cent of the population. Sixty per cent of the
population lives in extreme poverty as a result of this high concentration of
land. On the top of it, agribusiness plays a dominating role in the polity of
the country. Monsanto collects royalties on the transgenic soy and cotton seeds
planted throughout Paraguay, and in 2011 it collected $30 billion. 40 per cent of the production
and refining of Paraguayan soy is owned by Cargill that earns $100 billion
annual profits a year. All these giant agribusiness houses enjoy many
protections from Congress and pay no taxes – benefits gained during the sixty
year rule of the Colorado party, in which a major role was played by Alfredo Stroessner, a US-supported
dictator. The incident that triggered the impeachment of Lugo was the massacre at
Curuguaty, a province in Paraguay, in which 18 people were killed (eleven were peasants and seven were
police). The incident occurred when the special Paraguayan operation forces (Grupo
Especial de Operaciones, GEO) led the raid on 60 peasants who were occupying 2000
hectares of land in an area called Marina Cue. These people did not belong to
any specific peasant organisation. The land they had occupied is disputed, but
its ownership is claimed by Blas N Riquelme, who is a former senator from the Colorado party and
one of the richest and largest landowners in the country. In 1969, the
Stroessner administration illegally gave Riquelme 50,000 hectares of land that
was supposed to be destined to poor farmers as a part of land reform. This case
of ill-gotten land was reported in the Report of the Truth and Justice
Commission in 2008, while peasants have been fighting for ownership of this
land since 1989, the fall of dictatorship.

ROLE OF THE US

Many analysts had expressed their
reservations about the June 15 Curuguaty massacre, stating that it might even
been stage-managed by the ruling classes to trap Lugo and ensure that he is
eased out of the president's office. The involvement of the special Paraguayan
operation forces who are trained by the US military, strengthens their suspicions as it still has two bases in Paraguay. (Interestingly, not far from this military base lie 40,000 hectares
of land acquired by former US president George W Bush, and another enormous property owned by his
father, former president George H W Bush.) Paraguay is a signatory of the Northern Zone Initiative (IZN) that many refer
to as an equivalent of the despised Plan Colombia. Much of the US military influence in the country stems from this pact, which allows
for 'humanitarian assistance'. It was signed with the US in 1961, and not reviewed either after the end of the dictatorship or
the victory of Lugo.

It is a known fact that ruling classes
in Paraguay are not happy with Lugo's election as
president. In 2008, just 18 days after assuming the presidency, Lugo publicly exposed a
conspiracy to remove him from government by force. There is a strong opinion,
which believes that Federico Franco too was involved in this coup attempt. Wikileaks
expose in 2009 refers to a conversation of an US intelligence official with Federico Franco. Franco belongs to the
right-wing Liberal Radical Authentic Party and enjoys 'friendly relationship'
with the US embassy. He regularly discussed
and shared his numerous arguments and disagreements with president Lugo with the US embassy officials, as the secret cables reveal.

The cables also talk about an
interesting incident that happened in March 2010. At a luncheon meeting in
honour of the visiting US generals, the US ambassador Liliana Ayalde proposed a debate about the political
situation in Paraguay and the possibility of impeaching president Lugo. Paraguay’s
minister of defence, General (retired) Luis Bareiro Spaini, who was present at
the meeting (also attended by Franco) objected. This earned him a censure from
the Senate for his 'affronts to the US ambassador', while the conniving vice president was left untouched.

The notorious USAID in Paraguay, works closely with the Paraguayan Supreme Court, the Hacienda
ministry, security organs and the Colorado Party.

There are three compelling reasons for a
coup in Paraguay. One, while Lugo failed to meet many of his campaign promises, he did in fact block
many of the right-wing’s policies that would worsen the crisis in the
countryside. For example, Lugo and his cabinet
resisted the use of Monsanto’s transgenic cotton seeds in Paraguay, a move that hastened his ouster. The agribusiness corporates and the
ruling classes saw Lugo if not a threat to their interests, as an hindrance to the speed at
which they wanted to earn profits. Moreover, Lugo has voiced his
support for the regional integration with other governments in the continent. This
regional cooperation is not viewed positively either by the US or the transnational companies.

Two, Lugo is relatively the
weakest of all the progressive presidents in the region. He was isolated from
above at the political level, always dependent on the right-parties’ mercy and
lacked a strong political base below due to his stance towards social movements
and the slow pace of land reform. Peasants and peasant organisations had lots
of hopes on Lugo, who they thought would introduce land reforms. But Lugo, after his
victory as president and lack of majority in the Congress, was caught in a
dilemma: whether to stand by the peasants and implement his electoral promises,
running a risk of losing the government; or whether to be in the government
with compromises and wriggle out whatever he was allowed to implement his
electoral promises. As his ouster points out, this dilemma cost him both power
and support of the social movements and peasants. Argentine political scientist
Atilio Boron refers to Lugo's administration as
a “timidly progressive government that is unable to convoke a broad social
movement support and Left parties to its side”.

Three, apart from the absence of
substantial support to the president, all the major parties in the country are
against him. Moreover, Paraguay is a small land-locked country in the continent that is not much in
the international news, unlike countries like Ecuador, Bolivia or Venezuela. Lugo was also not a committed anti-imperialist like the presidents of the
aforementioned countries. Lugo’s belief that he
could “govern with imperialism, with the feudal oligarchy and with the right-wing
parties” led to his ouster. A joint statement issued by 29 social movements and
172 individuals condemning the coup and demanding the reinstatement of Lugo, candidly states: “one
can never talk the talk of revolution while walking the walk of extractive
capital. Capital wins when condescending governments recklessly provide their
stamp of approval for their projects. We, the people, lose”.

The coup should be seen in the context
of increasing US military bases in the region and the war games carried out by the US Fourth Fleet near the coast of Venezuela. It is wrong to assume that US imperialism got bogged down with the affairs in West Asia/North Africa and does not have
the wherewithal to intervene in the affairs of Latin America. As recent events
point out, the US is very active to regain its foothold in the region. It is trying to
use the discontent against the progressive regimes in this region to fuel coups
and rightist take-overs. In this background, the struggle for restoration of
president Lugo assumes tremendous importance. If it is left unchallenged, it will
further strengthen the conservative forces in the continent.

The Paraguayan coup once again
reiterates that personal charisma and radical promises might bring a person to
power but to withstand the attacks of the right and use the power attained for
the benefit of the poor, it is necessary to have a strong political organisational
machinery. Chavez had learnt it after the coup in 2002, and immediately founded
his political party, PSUV and empowered the various missions to develop a
strong mass base in his support. Lugo didn't and paid the
price for it. However, what Lugo lost is not
something personal. The coup is affront to the aspirations of the people of Paraguay and should be defeated.

Even today in Paraguay, many Leftists, social movements and peasants still see Lugo as a relative ally
and source of hope in the face of the right-wing alternative. This is why
thousands of people are on the streets protesting the 'constitutional coup'. Solidarity
with Lugo means standing in defence of all the progressive developments that had
taken place in the continent over the last decade. We must join forces to
prevent all such attempts designed to reverse them. Latin America became a source of
inspiration to all the progressive people in the world because of its struggles
against neo-liberalism and imperialism. The 'coups' are an attempt to snuff out
that source of inspiration. Standing opposed to such attempts is the task of
all the progressive minded people of the world.